EDMONTON- What a difference a day makes. The weather in Edmonton can be unpredictable at times, and Thursday was no exception.
As much as 30 centimetres of snow fell in some areas of the city, after all was said and done Thursday.
Cleanup crews worked around the clock throughout the spring snow storm Thursday, and into Friday, to ensure the roads were clear for commuters.
“We were out late last night and we had full-force equipment out, as much as we could. We’re in good shape today. We’re concentrating on our collectors and our residential road network,” said Roland Aitchison, Superintendent of Operations for Roadway Maintenance with the City of Edmonton.
“We’ve got 90 hired equipment graters, we’ve supplemented that with our own fleet, so we’re up at around 200 pieces of equipment on the roadways,” Aitchison added.
Also out on the roadways Thursday were Edmonton police officers, who responded to 164 collisions over a 24 hour period starting Thursday morning. Eleven of those crashes involved injuries, 13 were hit-and-runs, and the rest were considered fender-benders, according to the Edmonton Police Service (EPS).
Inspector Brian Nowlan with EPS says officers have been “remarkably busy.”
“This type of work, it tends to compound itself; you get one accident, if it involves more than two vehicles it becomes very time consuming. So, now you get (police) cars tied up at an accident scene for, perhaps, as long as two hours,” Nowlan explained.
Meanwhile, staff at the Alberta Motor Association (AMA) were also extremely busy Thursday, with wait times for a tow truck spiking to up to eight hours.
“(There were) lots of collisions, a lot of people going into the ditch, Anthony Henday was really bad, the Whitemud, the Yellowhead, and a lot of the rural areas out in Sherwood Park region… (were) very busy, a lot of people hitting the ditch,” said Randy Loyk, Manager of Technical Services at the AMA.
“I would have to say it was probably one of our busiest times this winter, pretty comparable to the season two years ago when we had all the snow. So, it was definitely a big snow dump for us.”
Loyk says crews are now “cleaning up the mess left over from yesterday.” Friday afternoon, the wait time for a tow truck was down to about two and a half hours and those needing a boost or tire change were attended to within one hour, according to Loyk.
While Friday’s weather and road conditions are an improvement from what they were just 24 hours ago, officials say Edmontonians aren’t out of the woods just yet, as temperatures are set to rise next week.
“There’s a lot of snow on the roads and there’s a lot of snow on the boulevards, so we will have some melting concerns. We’re ready for that,” Aitchison said. “We have some contingency plans to deal with that when it happens.”
While plans are in place to deal with melting conditions, Nowlan is urging motorists to drive to the road conditions.
“The roads are going to start melting, but at night time they’re going to turn hazardous because they freeze over. As I said, we’re not out of the woods, we’ve got a long way to go until we’re down to bare concrete and driving conditions improve.”
The city does not plan to implement a parking ban as a result of Thursday’s snow storm. Aitchison says crews will be removing windrows from some of the main arterial roadways and bridge decks in the city.
At this time there is no word as to how much the clean up will cost the city. Aitchison says the next task crews will have to deal with will be all of the potholes left in Edmonton’s streets.
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